Sanctum Released 4 February 2011 Director Alister Grierson Starring Richard Roxburgh, Rhys Wakefield, Dan Wyllie, Ioan Gruffudd Writer(s) John Garvin, Andrew Wight Producer(s) Andrew Wight Origin United States, Australia Running Time 108 minutes Genre Thriller, adventure Rating 15A

6

Oh, just die already!!!

James Cameron’s name has been all over the promotional material for this, but cinemagoers beware!! Cameron is only listed as an executive producer on this film and with that credit, the sum total of his involvement could have been just introducing the studio to his old mate Andrew Wight. Wight and Cameron are long-time collaborators on the deep-sea diving documentaries Cameron became obsessed with when making Titanic.

The story of Sanctum is based very, very loosely on a real-life experience of Wight some years back. He was leading an expedition in some caves that became flooded and he had to lead them to safety, which he did with no lives lost. However the script he has produced with co-writer John Garvin is very much a formulaic disaster movie with a much higher body count.

Set in Papua New Guinea, Australian teenager Josh (Rhys Wakefield) collects billionaire investor Carl (Ioan Gruffudd) and his girlfriend Victoria (Alice Parkinson) and brings them to the site they’re exploring. Josh’s dad Frank (Richard Roxburgh) is leading an expedition to explore some caves for some reason and Carl is funding this expensive and reckless folly. Josh isn’t so keen on his father’s passion, but Frank’s assistant George (Dan Wyllie) insists endangering their lives diving in caves is all very important stuff, although he seems to be trying to convince the audience as much as Josh.

There’s tension between the father and son as well as between Frank and Carl over the control of the project. There’s lots of shouting and pouting and when a member of the crew dies while diving, there’s even more sulking and swearing. Then things take a turn for the worse when a freak storm hits the site and the caves become flooded. Although most of the crew get out, the remaining members are trapped and must try to use Frank’s expertise to escape through the underground caves.

The big pitch of this film is that it’s 3-D under water. Well, aside from a few early effects, the 3-D quickly becomes pretty dull and you actually forget about it long before the end. So with the 3-D aspects pretty negligible, we’re left with the nuts and bolts of the actual film, you know, that old-fangled stuff like the script, the plot and the performances. Unfortunately, all of these are utterly hopeless!

Wight seems to have scribbled the idea for the film down on the back of a fag packet and Garvin’s only contribution seems to have been to add in a few commas. The dialogue is so bad; it would embarrass the writers of Home and Away with its sheer bland witlessness. The characterisation is as follows– Frank is a ruthless, pig-ignorant blowhard who never talks when a good shout will do instead, his son Josh is a whinging brat, rich Carl is a slimy, manipulative git, his girlfriend Victoria is a spoilt moany-hole and George is a dolt whose only function is to worship Frank. Rarely in the history of cinema has a more objectionable bunch of people been thrown together in peril. The audience is asked to care about their survival but instantly we’re firmly on the side of Mother Nature.

The actors involved should hang their head in shame. Nobodies like Rhys Wakefield and Alice Parkinson can be forgiven as perhaps the soaps weren’t hiring, but what the hell is a fine actor like Richard Roxburgh doing in this rubbish? As for Ioan Gruffudd, this has to go down as a career-worst performance, though in fairness to him whoever thought it was a good idea to cast this mild-mannered Welsh actor as an obnoxious American millionaire needs to have their head examined.

This is a spectacularly bad film, with dialogue that makes you cringe from the start and performances so unconvincing and irritating that you practically cheer when the cast is bumped off.

Ignore the “Avatar under-water” hype and avoid this garbage!

- Jim O’Connor